Jarkko Lehmus Diary

New Years, New Tricks

Ho-ho-ho! Ballet Stylee. Photo by me.©

Happy New Year to all and sundry!

I was supposed to put pen on paper before 2008 was ushered in, but unfortunately the time to do that didn't materialise, so here I am picking my Monday brain for your sporadic entertainment.

Ashley's Sleeping Beauty is well and truly on the roll with 21 pretty much sold out performances in the bag and another 26 still bearing down on the company. We've got 7 extra dancers contracted for the production, but the pressure is still pretty heavy on everyone and it's starting to show with a few niggling injuries and some ragged nerves. The shows itself have been pretty good so far. The audience certainly has been enjoying the run so far, but the constantly changing casting is taking it's toll.

There's another principal casting going on on Thursday night bringing the grand total of different Aurora/Prince combinations to five. As the king I've had a ringside seat watching the gradual physical degeneration of the hardest worked dancers. I feel the need to help where I can, so I've been working a bit more on the massage front to keep the poor things going. Luckily the worst is over already and the performance schedule for the rest of the tour will be a little more spread out, but at the same time the stages of the future will be either hard, raked or both.

Paul Liburd is going under the knife to get his knee sorted, Diana is still pregnant, me and the dancers' committee are trying to sort out some maternity leave issues and generally just trying to keep the schedules organised in a decent manner and keeping up the communication with the management, so that everybody knows what's going on, when and where to keep things running as smoothly as possible to minimise the external stress to keep the company as happy and productive as possible.

You'd hope that especially at this moment the general well-being of the dancers would feature heavily in the minds of the management team. You'd hope...

In my view clear well thought-out information, supportive and trust building attitude, inspiring ways of motivating your employees, keeping them intellectually challenged and making each person feel that they are cared for and understood are the cornerstones of effective management. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's something to aspire to.

If any of you readers disagree with me or are willing to contribute to my continuing education especially from the viewpoint of managing a dance company, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'd be more than happy to hear from you. you can find a link to my email underneath my picture on the left side of the page.

Other than the usual toiling and boiling I've bothered my little head with the oncoming choreographic workshop. A beautiful love duet, a very reserved man and his madness and a sandwich are taking from. I'm trying to pull off a commissioned score for the piece to make it that little bit more special. Let's see how that one goes.

After The Beauty is put to bed until the next Christmas season Krzysztof Pastor will hop on the plane from Holland and whip up a new version of Romeo and Juliet using the Prokofiev score. The classic tale will be set in a slightly more classic setting of the 30s and 50s Sicily. I don't know much about the casting yet, but creating a new work is always interesting. I suppose I'll end up in another character part with not too much dancing in it. I really should learn to point my feet and do so pretty twirly things one of these days. Then again, if I'd be one of the Three Lords-a-leaping, who'd be the daddy? I guess I'm stuck with serial fatherdom for the rest of my days in this company. Maybe I'll get to be a real bad-ass Tybalt for the second cast. I savour the thought.

I've been trying to inject a bit of character into my second role of the Romanian Prince with some rougher moves, a shaggy hair and some gray streaks to bring the wolf out. Now all I need is some yellow contact lenses...

Having thoroughly lost my thread there I'll just leave you with my observation of the speed that technology moves forward from the streets of Glasvegas.

Only yesterday it was the big 70s tellies on the street... Photo by me.©

Posted by Jarkko at January 7, 2008 11:02 PM